"Spring"ing Back to Branson - Regular Updates every 2-3 Days! - COMPLETE 10/15 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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"Spring"ing Back to Branson - Regular Updates every 2-3 Days! - COMPLETE 10/15
Cast: Me, Christie, 36, stay-at-home mom and obsessive-compulsive trip planner.
Husband, Jay, 37
Our son, Joshua, 5
Jay's dad Jerry, 66, retired and living with Jay's sister
Experience: Fifth trip for me and Joshua, fourth for Jay, third for Jerry
Dates: May 21-27, 2007
Lodging: Big Cedar Lodge, Ridgedale, Missouri (6 nights)
Transportation: truck, 8 hours from Clinton, MS
Contents:
• Introduction
• Planning
• Day 1 - May 21
• Day 2 - May 22
• Day 3 - May 23
• Day 4 - May 24
• Day 5 - May 25
• Day 6 - May 26
• Day 7 - May 27
• Conclusion
Introduction
Welcome to yet another Branson trip report by ME! If you've read one of my reports before, you know that I'm very detailed and long-winded, but fortunately I've gotten the picture thing down - with a slight delay thanks to ImageStation closing their website, and having to set up a new account on Shutterfly. As usual, I will be giving you a very detailed account of our activities for each day. This type of trip report really helps me plan better, and I hope it helps you out as well. I also keep all my reports, so they serve as a journal to help me remember things later that I otherwise would have forgotten about.
If you read my holiday Branson trip report, you'll see the pattern we're currently in of a trip to Branson every six months or so. This was our third year in a row to visit here in the Spring, and I was excited that we were able to stay almost a whole week this time. Jay's dad Jerry now lives with Jay's sister and is just like a little child. You have to make him do everything, and he keeps coming up with all these crazy stories about things that are happening to him when she's not at the house to "protect" him. So we decided to bring him on this trip with us and give her a break. And since he was at our house for a few days before the trip, as well as a couple of days afterward, she had almost two whole weeks' break. She ended up using the time to hold a garage sale of a lot of his junk!
As usual, I would welcome any and all comments or questions via a Private Message or a reply to this post. I'm always ready to offer up my assistance based on what I've picked up over previous trips, as well as answer any questions you might have. I'll be posting updates to this report every 2-3 days, so keep checking back for the next installment.
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